Women can't fight, ne?
by Tori Yuki Ichimura
Summary: My friend sent me an article about female soldier she saw in her paper. It angered me. Heero explains why.


A/N: For the sake of my point, I'm going to change the Earth/ Space war to the current war against terrorism (a.k.a. Bin Laden and the Taliban…)  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing, Duet or the article mentioned. (Not that I'd want to) I used to own Bin Laden, but I sold him to the Taliban for a nickle and three beads. I mean no offense to the author of the article mentioned, but I do disagree with her. Just because she was "a twig-sized girl with a propensity for rescuing insects and wouldn't have lasted a day in combat" doesn't mean all women are incapable of war! I do feel her article was biased and that she is using her gender to escape criticism. If she was a man, this article would be totally unacceptable.  
  
My friend on the east coast immediately e-mailed me a copy of this when she saw it the paper 12/01/01. In turn, I was inspired to write this short fic.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*  
  
Duet yawned and slowly opened her eyes. "Morning, sunshine!" Quatre chimed and Duet snapped awake. She rubbed her eyes and tried to sit up, but realized she couldn't move.   
  
"Wha?" she asked fuzzily and was instantly pushed back down onto her bed.   
  
"You slept in!" the weight chimed and Duet growled.  
  
"Get off, baka!" she cried and shoved Duo, who had made himself quite comfortable.   
  
"What's the magic word?"  
  
"Semi-automatic."  
  
"Close enough," he laughed and helped her up. Quatre and Duo were cheery as usual, but the other three guys were touchy in the early morning hours. Duo loved to taunt Heero and Wu Fei when they got up, which has significantly shortened his lifespan.  
  
Together, the even numbers entered the kitchen and simultaneously plopped down into three chairs that had been set up for the sole purpose of their morning ritual. Right on schedual, Heero and Wu Fei opened the back door and came in, toweling off the sweat of their morning run. Trowa finished making breakfast and set everything on the table.   
  
Seven-thirty on the dot, everyone was done. Duet and Duo bounded off to sit by the mailbox and make the mailman feel uncomfortable when he came and the others enjoyed a few minutes of silence.  
  
"You were late again!" two voices chorused, followed by the gunning of an engine. The pair returned with a huge stack of letters, only a fraction of which was theirs.  
  
"Stop taking other people's mail," Trowa frowned as he flipped through the stack. He gave up, tossing the majority in the trash. On a closer inspection we see these are addressed to at least eight or nine different people.   
  
"How goes the war?" Duo asked over his shoulder, munching on a post-breakfast Pop-tart as Trowa opened the paper. Duo dropped his fruity treat and turned to look wide-eyed at Duet. Trowa leaned in to get a better look at the paper, eyes widening with every word of the article he was reading.  
  
"What? What is it?" Trowa handed the puzzled girl the paper and her eyes bugged out. "'I'm A Misogynistic Woman*...?'" she read out loud and furiously began to peruse the article.  
  
"Women would spoil espirit de corps, aren't physically strong enough, would distract male soldiers and would get raped as prisoners of war!?" Duet cried, and in a fit of rage scrunched up the offending paper. The boys slowly inched away from her.   
  
"I hesitate to say she has a point…" Wu Fei mumbled.  
  
"WHAT WAS THAT!?" the braided girl yelled, drew her gun and placed it between the Chinese pilot's eyes.  
  
"I-I said s-she ha-has a p-p-point!" Duet cocked the gun. "YOU ARE DISTRACTINGLY BEAUTIFUL!" he blurted out and Duet lowered the gun, plastering a satisfied smile on her face.  
  
"Well, I do have to agree with…"  
  
"Nice save, Wu-man!" Duo grinned and patted him on the back. Duet facefaulted.  
  
"Let me see that," Heero said and took the paper from Duet. He read it carefully. Then read it again to be sure his eyes weren't deceiving him. "This was written by a woman? Hn. She's probably afraid to fight, but even so it does not make it right for her to make such a generalization…"  
  
"Why not? All women are the same," Wu Fei shrugged and once again found himself staring down the barrel of Duet's .45.  
  
"Well, I'll show you." Heero reached up above the top of the screen and miraculously pulled down a chart with pictures of Sally, Noin, Duet, Relena, Catherine, Dorothy, Hilde, and Sylvia grouped into two categories. Sally, Noin, Duet, Dorothy and Hilde stood to one side and Relena, Catherine and Sylvia stood to the other. Heero pulled out a pair of glasses and a lab coat and assumed the educational administrator look.  
  
"Now, here we have two different kinds of women: the soldiers and the wimps," he began and Duet beamed at being referred to as a soldier by Heero. "The soldier are women who are more than capable of battle, more so than some men while the "wimps" as we shall call them would rather preach peace and give boring speeches and stalk me…" Heero trailed off when he noticed the others were staring at him. He cleared his throat and continued. "As I was saying, people should not be generalized by gender, but instead by their courage and abilities. There are wimpy men and there are women capable of war as Duet has proven. (Duet still has her gun in Wu Fei's face, but she is listening attentively to Heero. Wu Fei, on the other hand, is sweating profusely.) In short, everyone has their own purpose. It is not up to journalists and politician to determine peoples' purposes, but for the people themselves."  
  
The other pilots burst into applause and Heero bows gracefully. Much to everyone's surprise, Wu Fei raises his fist and shouts, "Power to the women!"  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*  
*Title changed so I'm not sued. Though I don't understand why I would be, I'm too poor to take that risk…   
  
Oh, and I just said "wimpy" for the sake of Heero's point and grouping of Relena and the humor. I'm not calling you a wimp if you don't want to fight, but in the article it said women were not allowed to register for a possible draft so they had no choice at all, and I'm sure if it came down to defending everything you love even the most tender-hearted of us would want to fight.  
  
I'm sorry you had to sit through my little rant, but the article just made me so angry! And it's not just that one, it's the thousands I see just like it! It's the kind of thing you would expect to see written by a man in some sexist country, not in the free states that I respect so much! I love the US so much! If I ever had to move, that's where I would want to live. I understand the article was Kathleen's view of the situation, and I must respect it, as it is her opinion, but that doesn't mean I can't disagree with it... 


End file.
